Can You Hear My Voice?
by Cardi
Summary: A Federal soldier near the end of the OYW is more tangled up in his personal problems than in the battle around him.


Every time I close my eyes, I try to recall her face. I can't remember the details anymore, but I can remember the warmth. Even in the midst of this waking nightmare, I am guided by the light of her smile. 

Still, I wish I could remember the rest more clearly. 

_Crunching. _

The dull pain grows with every day. Your voice is growing faint. What happened? What's this silence that's come between us? I want to hear your voice more than anything else. It's what I remember most lucidly.

_Dead of night. The armor crawls through the darkness. The enormous human forms lie in wait. It is not yet their time._

I've never known this kind of pain. I thought at first that it was mere longing, but this is something different. Its persistence is forever.

_A wind through the treetops._

My only happiness in this haze of faceless death has come from reading what you've written to me. I hang on to every flippant little word, if only because you wrote it. I believed that through it all, beyond the fire, there was still someone out there who cared about me. I live today. I will live to the end of this, if only to see you smile. If only to hear your voice.

_The hulking machines arise from their hunkering. Yellow visors illuminate the night._

Now your voice is so distant. I never knew how alone I was until now, with your voice fading into the recesses of my memory. Have you forgotten me? 

_Blind, unfeeling. The giants crash through the ancient life. The old homes are crushed underfoot. _

I can't expect you to wait forever. I never asked anything of you, and I certainly won't ask for the impossible. I just want to know about this gulf that separates us. So sudden, so complete. I want to carry you with me, but you won't let me anymore.

_A clearing. The hills are red, but the night is absolute. They trudge ceaselessly._

I lived my life with no will. I let the currents pull me along. I accepted my fate. I had given up, given in. Nobody cared about me, and I didn't care about myself. But I met you that day.

_Memories of the Alabama girls before bullets scream through the foliage. The darkness flees in brief flashes, but returns far too quickly._

To find someone who not only cared about, but was _overjoyed_ by my mere existence, was, I realize now, the most important day of my life. Maybe I took it for granted that I was everything to you. Is that what it is? Was I too callous? I would take it all back for one more inane letter from you.

_Hitting dirt. Men of leadership roar their commands. Trees shatter with hateful force._

Do I still matter to you like I did back then? If we were to meet right now, would you still choke with self-consciousness? Would you still cling close to me, eyes begging me wordlessly to love you? I wish I hadn't been such a coward; I would've told you long ago how I really feel. If I had only stopped hiding in plain sight, we would have been truly inseparable. Even across this insurmountable distance, across the bullets and blood and bombs and machines, I can still hear your voice.

_Fuel ignites. The glare of rockets over the treetops. Screams, both human and titanium._

Am I dead to you? Is this silence the past few months your funeral for me? Please, say anything to me. More than anything else, I can't bear the silence. I'd rather have a spiteful goodbye than to be cut out of your life without warning. To disconnect without a word; I've never known anything that could so profoundly deepen my aloneness. 

_The sickening snap of metal as a limb flies free. Men with rifles are reduced to paste where it lands._

Do you still care the way you used to? Am I still important? Do you still love me? Can you recall my face at all, or is it fading?

_Fingers of fire reach into the starless sky. Heavy breath. The Zekes appear to recede. Move forward, you wave of man and flesh and machine and metal. _

If I could see you now, would you have the answers? Would you even speak to me, or would you turn away? Do I even deserve to look you in the eye, knowing I have this blood on my hands?

_Forward. Always forward. To look back is to die. The pink spots of light in the distance have nothing left to lose. Round after round tearing through us. It's over._

Do I matter anymore?

_Falling. Crushing._

Can you still hear my voice?

_Blackness. Forever blackness._

_1st Lieutenant Steven Queen was found critically wounded in the cockpit of his damaged GM after a heated nighttime skirmish in southern California on the morning of December 3rd, 0079. He was rushed to medical facilities in Vandenberg, where he remains in a persistent vegetative state as of February 11th, 0081._

Marlene McCann, a woman with whom Queen frequently corresponded throughout his military service, was killed four months prior in England during an aerial bombardment.


End file.
